CHECKING THE MEDIA HOSTILITY PERCEPTION THESIS, paper submitted to ECREA Congress, Barcelona, Catalonia, November 2008

1. Checking Media Hostility Perception
thesis among Catalan Blogosphere
Josep Sort
(Universitat Ramon Llull)
paper submitted to 2nd European Communication Conference
European Communication Research and Education Association
Barcelona, CATALUNYA, 25-28/11/2008

2. Summary
Blogosphere phenomenon √
Media Hostility Perception thesis √
Catalan Blogosphere: Catosfera √
Checking Media Hostility Perception
thesis among Catosfera X
Conclusions (provisionals) X

3. Blogosphere Phenomenon
State of Blogosphere, 2008
133 millions blog records
indexed by Technorati since
2002
7.4 million blogs posted in
last 120 days
1.5 million blogs posted in
the last 7 days
900.000 blogs posts in 24
hours

4. “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look so 2004”,
Paul Boutin, WIRED, 16:11 (20.10.2008)
Blogs become impersonal
(growing cases of D‐I‐
T, and corporate)
The insult commenter
Text‐based

5. Media Hostility Perception thesis
Media hostility is attributed to those citizens
that have a strong committment towards an issue.
They are partisans.They tend to consider
traditional media (press, radio and TV) favour
the opposing side.
Most bloggers do not trust traditional media.
Also blogs reviewers and readers don’t.
Are bloggers & co, strong committed citizens?
Bloggers are an example of D‐I‐Y culture.

6. Catalan Blogosphere: Catosfera
Catosfera
“refers to the set of all the blogs written
in Catalan and to the virtual community that
exists around these blogs, including those
people who post articles, those who read them
and those who comment them”
First proposed by Toni Ibanez, in trosdequoniam blog
Entry “Qualitat”, posted on 06.01.2005 at 11.40 am

7. Catosfera (2)
Main elements
Evolution (from 2002 to 2008)
Topics: Hiperpolitisation

8. Catosfera: Main elements
A substitution role (no referential media)
Authenticity (partisanship)
Emulation (Journalist/writer tradition)

9. Evolution of Catosfera (1)
2002‐03, Origins of Catosfera
2005, appears the Catosfera concept
2005‐(first half 06),the rise o Catosfera
(second half 2006‐2207), A certain slowdown
2008 (january) First Catosfera Assembly (250
participants)

10. Evolution of the Catosfera (2)
2008 Regional and local blogs networks or
communities appear (ebresfera, vallesfera,
maresmesfera, etc.)
2008 October Premis Blocs Catalunya event
(556 blocs)
2008 October‐November, Social Media such as
Faceboook, Twitter, MySpace gain momentum.

11. Catosfera: Main Topics
Hiperpolitisation
Thematic inequality.
Political Networks:
Xarxa de Blocs Sobiranistes
Socialist Blogosphere
Nationalist Blogosphere
Republican Blogosphere
Others

12. Hiperpolitisation
Catosfera first surged in 2005, closely
linked to to political events such as:
Debates on European Constitution
referendum (2004)
Debates on new autonomy Statute talks
and referendum (2005‐06),
And to Catalan (2003, 2007) i Spanish
elections (2004)

13. Hiperpolitisation
Political Blogs (blogitics o
poliblogs became the most dynamic
topic.
Most of the posts refer to the
political situation in Catalonia
(for or against current
government, relationship with
Spanish government, local
political affairs,and so on).

14. Checking Media Hostility
Perception thesis among the
Catosfera
Unfortunately quantitative data is not
available, at the moment this paper is
presented. They will be in a matter of a few
weeks.
However a “on the ground” survey carried out
at Catosfera meeting (January 2008) show a
high level of distrust towards Media from
assistants. A huge plurality of them agree
Catalan Media are biased.

15. Checking Media Hostility Perception
thesis among the Catosfera
On the other hand, qualitative data (interviews) show also a low
level of blogger’s trust in mainstream media.
Notwithstanding, there is not a total rejection towards them. Not
few of the bloggers interviewed consider that traditional media
are important because of its traditional audience.
As a consequence, bloggers do not avoid the contact with
traditional media, in order to influence them and reach its
traditional audience that in a very important proportion is not
connected to Internet

16. Conclusions
It seems clear that one of the main reasons
to blog is because there is a well expanded
anti‐traditional media sentiment among
Catosfera people (and more exactly among
political Catosfera people).
However, this sentiment do not preclude a
kind of collaboration between bloggers and
media, in order to reinforce each other.
There is then a kind of complementarity

17. Thank you for your
attention
Gràcies per la seva
atenció
JOSEP SORT
FACULTAT DE COMUNICACIó BLANQUERNA
UNIVERSITAT RAMON LLULL
a/e:
josepsort@mac.com